76-02-A1

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The Median in the Message

Transcript You've heard the phrase, "He didn't mince words." Well in this election season there's been a recent case that's turned the phrase around. I'll be right back. Politicians are supposed to be masters of the well-turned phrase but it doesn't always work out that way. Take the case that began about two weeks ago involving presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. He was being interviewed by writers and editors of the Associated Press. At one point he said he would want to shift a large increase in the tax burden, quote, "toward those who have the higher incomes and reduce the income tax on the lower income and middle-income people." Unquote. Now there's nothing startling about that sort of statement during an election campaign, but what followed must have brought the reporters up with a start. The first question was, "what do you mean when you say shift the burden?" Carter answered, "that means people who have a higher income would pay more taxes at a certain level." Question: In dollar figures what are you thinking of as higher?" Answer: "I don't know I would take the median level of income and anything above that would be higher and anything below that would be lower." There it was or seemed to be. A blockbuster of a tax shift, all wrapped up in one word: median. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines median as: "Being in the middle and designating a point so chosen in a series that half of the individuals in the series are on one side of it and half on the other." According to the Treasury Department, the median family income in the United States in 1974 was 12,836 dollars and slightly higher last year. That means, by candidate Carter's definition, anyone earning more would pay more taxes than he now does anyone earning less would pay less. At a time when big government and high taxes are under attack by large numbers of working Americans, the idea of bumping up taxes for half the population has all the appeal of Typhoid Mary. The first thing that happened, of course, was that newsmen being curious and competitive by nature wanted more elaboration from Mr. Carter and staff and Republican campaigners chimed in with their own comments on the significance of the median level of income. Next day, Carter went all out to reverse course. In a speech in St. Louis, armed with a four-volume copy of the tax code, he insisted that he would not, quote, "add a tax burden on working families and the medium income categories $15,000 income." Therein lies Mr. Carter's dilemma. Is it 'median,' the word he first used which will decide who gets a tax increase under a Carter administration, or is it 'Medium' income that's to be protected and President Ford has defined that as 8,000 to 30,000 dollars? Perhaps Mr. Carter didn't understand the word 'median,' but that's unlikely since he's an engineer by training and that's a word engineers use. And if he says he wasn't aware that the median income is somewhere between 12 and 14,000, someone will accuse him of not doing his homework. So you see how important little words can be in politics. Meanwhile median is being minced chopped and shredded by everyone in sight. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-02-A1 Production Date 09/21/1976 Book/Page N/A Audio Yes Youtube? No
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